


Of Sunshine and Daisies and Cyanide

by rachel614 (orphan_account)



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Apples, Chemistry jokes, F/M, Fluff, Sherlolly Appreciation Week 2019, shameless use of google, teen!lock
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-13
Updated: 2019-03-13
Packaged: 2019-11-16 11:05:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,251
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18093107
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/rachel614
Summary: “You’re the only person I’ve ever met who eats the entire apple. I expect you’d even eat the seeds if they weren’t poisonous.” He looked up to find Molly Hooper watching him from her neighboring desk, a tiny smile on her tiny face. Tiny was a good word for Molly, if you never saw her in the science lab.“There is hardly sufficient amygdalin in a single apple to create a deadly level of hydrogen cyanide.” Her smile widened, taking over her face in an expression that rather forcibly reminded him of—of—sunshine and daisies.----------------------------------Sherlolly Appreciation Week; Day 3: "Are you okay? And don't just say you are."Rated T for a very sick prank, because dear Jim is a very sick fellow.





	Of Sunshine and Daisies and Cyanide

**Author's Note:**

> Apple facts are courtesy of google. Lots of geeky science bits in here, some of it maybe a tad implausible (Sherlock, I'm looking at you.)

There was an apple on his desk.

 

It wasn't red, or he might have been...concerned. After Jim's trick at the Halloween party their class had put on for the middle school. He liked to think that he wasn't squeamish; he was interested in things no normal boy his age was. Still, when the image of what might have happened if Sherlock had been a little slower occasionally came to mind, it always left him with a sick feeling inside. Small children with bleeding mouths... razor blades in the apples for the bobbing game was quite bad enough, but even worse was the sure knowledge Jim had done it to get at _him_.

Sherlock hadn't even tried to tell an adult, simply swapping out the apples while John distracted everyone will a fascinatingly horrible rendition of "Here Comes the Sun". He knew it was Moriarty, and knew equally well he had no proof.

He was deeply... _discomfited_ by the thought of what Moriarty planned next.

 

In any case, this apple wasn’t red. It was green, a lovely shade that reminded him of lazy summer days spent lying in the grass with Eurus and their Irish setter, Redbeard. He picked it up, sniffing it and inspecting it for signs of damage. Some slight bruising on one side, but nothing more.

After a brief hesitation, he bit into it, his eyes fluttering shut as the tart sweetness filled his mouth.

 

Sherlock loved green apples.

 

In just a moment it was gone, even the core, leaving nothing but a few seeds and a lingering stickiness on his fingers. He set the seeds out in a line in the upper left corner of his desk, each precisely five millimeters apart. Six seeds. Six players in this twisted game with Moriarty.

 

“You’re the only person I’ve ever met who eats the entire apple. I expect you’d even eat the seeds if they weren’t poisonous.” He looked up to find Molly Hooper watching him from her neighboring desk, a tiny smile on her tiny face. Tiny was a good word for Molly, if you never saw her in the science lab.

“There is hardly sufficient amygdalin in a single apple to create a deadly level of hydrogen cyanide.” Her smile widened, taking over her face in an expression that rather forcibly reminded him of—of—sunshine and _daisies_.

“Not one apple,” she conceded. “But since trace amounts build up over time, your apple a day habit would likely be toxic enough to guarantee a doctor’s presence.” He couldn’t help the tiny smile of his own that tugged at the corner of his lips.

“That would not be necessary. I am certain you are capable of producing a dose of sodium thiosulfate.” A pleased flush came over her face at the rare compliment.

“You know that hydroxocobalamin would be better.” He scoffed.

“I’d be pissing red for weeks. Besides, even you couldn’t synthesize that in a high school laboratory. No. Sodium hydroxide, sulfur, and a Bunsen burner, and you’d be off the hook for manslaughter.” He delighted in her indignant splutter.

“Manslaugh—just how, exactly, is you poisoning yourself with apple seeds _my_ fault?”

 

He leaned back in his chair with a broad smirk.

“You enabled me, of course. It’s so difficult to support an apple habit without a supplier.”

That silenced her, of course. He hadn’t known someone could turn such a vibrant shade of red. She busied herself with her books, and he turned back to his own desk.

 

The smile slid off his face, and all mirth vanished as his gaze fell again on the little line of apple seeds. Six seeds. Six players. John, he could rely upon, of course.  Greg would side with Sherlock if he were given the choice, but it was far more likely that he’d be tricked, playing into Moriarty’s hand. Mrs. Hudson, kind, well-meaning Mrs. Hudson, who kept cannabis hidden in her desk drawer at home, and indulged in the evenings, unless there was labwork the next day, Mrs. Hudson who'd given him a key to 221B and told him he could run any experiment he liked so long as he cleared it with her first—she was an easy target, nothing more. Eurus...Eurus was the wild card. He and Eurus were as close as any siblings could be, but he knew that Jim Moriarty exerted a dangerous fascination on his genius little sister. Sherlock knew better than anyone the dark current that ran through Eurus’s mind, and he feared that he had paid her too little attention of late…

Yes. It was on Eurus, Eurus his beloved, brilliant, and misunderstood sister, on _Eurus_ that Moriarty’s plan would hinge.

 

And Sherlock could see no way out.

 

A tiny hand (how _could_ she be so small?) fell on his arm, pulling him out of his thoughts. Warm brown eyes looked at him, as though they could penetrate his very skin and bone to the beating heart beneath.

“Are you okay? And don’t just say you are,” she added, silencing him even as he opened his mouth. He closed it, looking at her mutely.

“My dad’s sick, you know,” she said, still looking at him. He did know, of course he knew, how could he not when Molly Hooper so very rarely smiled anymore? “He’s pretty cheerful most of the time, but when he thinks I’m not looking, when he thinks I can’t see...he’s sad.”

Why was she telling him this? Why was she so obviously baring her wounds to him?

“You look sad,” she said softly, and his whirling thoughts came to a screeching halt.

“ _You_ can see me,” he said stupidly, a dawning realization.

“I don’t count,” she said, looking away, and so she missed the slack-jawed expression he _knew_ his face wore. “I just, I thought,” she stumbled over her words, as she looked at her hands twisting in her lap. “If there was anything you need, anything at all. You could have me. I, I mean, I—”

Further Freudian slips were spared as Mrs. Hudson walked in. For the entirety of the chemistry class ( _Ion spectroscopy. Dull. Boring.)_ his thoughts spun and twisted, heedless of Mrs. Hudson’s lecture, of the awed noises of the class as she set salt solutions ablaze in a colorful glow, of the ringing of the bell and the tramp of feet carrying chattering students and one oblivious teacher from the darkened classroom. Not until Molly Hooper slid from her seat did his thoughts settle, into a precise framework that almost resembled a plan.

 

She gasped as his hand shot out, closing gently on the arm of her cheerful rainbow jumper. He looked up at her. Even in the dark her eyes seemed luminous.

“You’re wrong, you know. You do count. You’ve always counted and I’ve always trusted you.” His voice was softer than he expected, and he trembled, cursing his own weakness.

“But you were right. I’m not okay.”

“What do you need?” Her own voice was steady.

“It will be dangerous,” he warned her. “Not detention dangerous. Life-threatening injury dangerous.”

“What do you need?” she said again, and despite himself he felt his eyes burn.

“You,” he said, and turning over her arm, he poured apple seeds into her hand.

 

He left her in the dark some twenty minutes later, cheeks burning lithium red, her fingers clasped tightly around five tiny apple seeds. Keeping them safe.

He bit hard into the sixth, relishing the bitterness that filled his mouth.

 

**Author's Note:**

> I honestly don't know how this happened. I had an idea for a long and cracky piece where Sherlock keeps sabotaging Molly's dates by catching criminals in her vicinity, but decided that I didn't have time to write it. Instead I planned a short and sweet piece where Molly gives Sherlock an apple to cheer him up and it turned into...this.
> 
> Things to note: Eurus is _much_ more stable in this verse. When Sherlock's friend Victor moved away, their parents got him _and_ Eurus an Irish setter. Sherlock let Eurus pick the name, and she picked Redbeard in honor of Victor. Sherlock and Eurus became extremely close while caring for Redbeard, and even closer following their mutual devastation when he was put down some ten years later, when Sherlock was sixteen and Eurus fifteen. Eurus is still a bit wild, though, and Sherlock is the only one with any real influence on her. She's so gifted that she is tutored privately, unlike Sherlock who attends the local school. Sherlock has made a few friends (and one very dangerous enemy) at school, but he's still very abrasive and difficult to work with. Molly is his lab partner, and has always loved him. And this is less of a note and more of a biography, so I'm gonna leave it there in the hope that I come back to this verse some day!
> 
> It may interest you to know, I have a friend who really does eat her apples down to the seeds. Whenever she bit into an apple her eyes would get huge and round, like a cartoon characters. It was the funniest thing I'd ever seen; that and her face when I suggested that the apple seeds she kept dropping in my dorm room would probably sprout someday.
> 
> Final note: Did you catch the significance of the last apple seed? I wasn't sure how explicit I needed to be :(


End file.
